Cartel

SAN DIEGO -- Mexican drug kingpin Eduardo Arellano Felix was sentenced Monday to 15 years in federal prison for his role in a notorious Tijuana drug cartel that over several decades transformed Baja California into a springboard for drug smuggling into the U.S. Arellano Felix, the last of four brothers targeted for running the organized crime group, was portrayed by U.S. prosecutors as the chief financial officer who laundered tens of millions...

MEXICO CITY - The leader of the Gulf cartel, one of Mexico's oldest drug-running groups, has been captured, Mexican officials said Saturday. Mario Armando Ramírez Treviño was apprehended by the Mexican army Saturday morning, according to a government statement. The arrest took place in Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas, near the Texas border, Mexican media said. Ramirez, 51, known as “El Pelon,” or “The Bald One,” was indicted on drug distribution charges in a U.S. federal court in 2008.

MEXICO CITY - The leader of the Gulf cartel, one of Mexico's oldest drug-running organizations, was captured by the Mexican army Saturday, officials said, dealing a new blow to a decades-old enterprise whose power has waned in recent years with the rise of other criminal groups. Mario Armando Ramirez Treviño, 51, who is wanted in the United States, was arrested Saturday morning, according to a government statement. Mexican news organizations reported that he was detained in Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas, near the Texas border.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's foreign minister said Tuesday that his government would try to reverse an appeals court ruling that led to the release of a reputed drug kingpin imprisoned for the 1985 slaying of a U.S. narcotics agent. “The decision, in our opinion, wasn't respectful of the legal framework,” Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Meade told reporters Tuesday, referring to the appeals ruling that led to last week's release of alleged drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero. “We will have to find the way to reverse it.” Caro Quintero, who is alleged to be a founder of the once-powerful Guadalajara drug cartel, walked out of a prison in the state of Jalisco on Friday after serving 28 years of a 40-year sentence for the kidnapping, torture and murder of Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.

MEXICO CITY - It might have been an obscure regional court that released notorious drug kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero from prison, but it will be the 8-month-old government of President Enrique Peña Nieto that will have to handle the furious fallout. Caro Quintero, one of Mexico's major drug cartel leaders, was freed Friday after serving 28 years for the kidnapping, torture and murder of a U.S. narcotics agent, Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, in 1985. The court vacated his conviction and lifted what remained of a 40-year sentence, based on a technicality.

A notorious prison gang and a Mexican drug cartel were on the brink of forging a powerful alliance as part of an effort to muscle into the Southern California methamphetamine business with an army of street dealers, federal and local authorities confirmed Tuesday. In announcing a pair of indictments, authorities said they were able to disrupt the planned merger between the Michoacan drug cartel and leaders in California's Mexican Mafia prison gang. "This would have opened a superhighway for drugs and guns and given this cartel an exclusive franchise," U.S. Atty.

An explosion, a drug overdose, a car wreck, an undercover sting. All happen in such quick succession in the crime thriller "Drug War," the sensation is like being dropped into the middle of something much larger than random villainy. That is exactly what prolific Hong Kong director Johnnie To intended. The filmmaker treats "Drug War" like one of those high-profile cases that accidentally falls into law enforcement's lap. The film begins in Jinhai, a city in the southwest Chinese province of Guizhou and makes its way to one of the ports that a major drug cartel is considering for its export trade.

MEXICO CITY - Three men arrested in the slaying of a Mexican navy vice admiral have confessed that they were present at the time of the crime, and that they are members of a drug cartel that has been terrorizing the area, the nation's attorney general said Monday. Sunday's midday shooting death of Vice Adm. Carlos Miguel Salazar Ramonet and one of his assistants has sent shock waves through Mexico. The death of such a high-level military officer is a rarity in Mexico's drug war, and the navy is considered the nation's most elite and trustworthy fighting force.

MEXICO CITY - A wave of ambushes on federal police in the troubled Mexican state of Michoacan that has left two officers and 20 suspects dead were acts of desperation in response to the federal crackdown on criminal cartels, a government spokesman said Wednesday. Security spokesman Eduardo Sanchez's remarks, made in a radio interview, came a day after armed groups carried out six attacks on federal police in various locations across the southwestern state. On Wednesday, Mexican news reports said a seventh attack on police occurred Tuesday in an indigenous community near the port of Lazaro Cardenas, a key smuggling hub. Michoacan's interim governor, Jesus Reyna, said the unconfirmed toll was two officers killed and five wounded.

TIJUANA - The informant paid his own way to Mexico City and strode into a hotel room in an upscale neighborhood, willing to end the reign of one of Mexico's most brutal crime bosses. He wanted money, he told four Drug Enforcement Administration agents, but that wasn't his primary motivation. The Tijuana drug cartel insider said he had grown disgusted by the savagery of Teodoro "El Teo" Garcia Simental - the pudgy kingpin whose criminal mayhem was generating headlines around the world.